Activities

Taipei City Hospital dispatched a medical aid mission to Nepal, serving almost 2000 patients during their 10-day stay from March 9th to March 19th 2013. The mission was composed by a team of three physicians and two nurses specializing in internal, pediatric, surgery and emergency medicine from Renai, Zhongxiao, Yangming, Zhongxing and Heping Fuyou Branches. To carry out the mission, they brought 150KG weight of medicine to the medical unavailable corners of Kathmandu and Chitwan in Nepal .

“The living environment in both regions is very similar to the rural Taiwan 50 years ago” said by Dr. Chien-Chen Chen, a gastrointestinal surgeon. Clean water, gas and electricity are all luxuries so that fungal infection is very rampant among the natives as they can hardly keep personal hygiene by taking daily bath. The other common diseases are muscle pains caused by heavy farm work.

What surprised these medical professionals most, however, are not the health problems caused by the living and working conditions, it is the characteristics of patience and contentment owned by the natives. Due to the poverty and lack of medical resources, the people could not help but learn “NOT” to pay attention to their sufferings. “With the abundance of medical resources, Taiwanese probably can never imagine how worse a cutting injury can become without any treatment” said by the Emergency Nurse Shing-Ji Tu, “... but here I saw this kind of situation almost every day.”

This international medical work also spurred a lot of reflections on humanitarian aid. “We cannot change the situation in a single action and probably this is neither what the local people expect” remarked by Dr. His Chu from Thoracic Medicine. “They called their home ‘paradise’ and never think of leaving for a modern life” added by the anesthesia nurse Mei-Yu Chen. For Dr. Kun-Mei Lee, a pediatrician who has many international emergency aid experiences, the most important thing is to let the people living in the world’s corner know “someone cares and loves.”